HCM City hits 2018 revenue target

HCM City  (VNA) - HCM City’s revenues last year grew by 8.6 percent to 378.54 trillion VND (16.3 billion USD), according to the municipal Department of Finance.

The city, which gets a portion of its revenues allocated to it by the Government, spent 72.63 trillion VND, up almost a fifth from the previous year, with 30.79 trillion VND being spent on socio-economic infrastructure.

Huynh Thi Thanh Hien, deputy director of the department, told a review meeting where the figures were tabled that despite facing many challenges such as falling import tariffs due to free trade agreements and difficulties faced by local enterprises, her department and other relevant ones had managed to meet the revenue target set by the Government, which was 17.5 percent higher than in 2017.  

They would try their best to accomplish the revenue targets in 2019 too, she promised.

Her department would coordinate with others such as customs, tax and treasury to intensify tax inspection, strictly deal with tax payment delays and evasion, and abuse of transfer pricing, she said.

It would also help businesses resolve difficulties related to tax and other issues, she said.

Nguyen Thanh Phong, Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee, appreciated the efforts made by the finance department to fulfill the city’s revenue targets.

This year the city has been set a target of 399.1 trillion VND (17.17 billion USD), or 26.3 percent of the country’s total revenues, he said.

The target for domestic collection is 272.32 trillion VND, an increase of 16.4 percent, he said.

“These targets are too high. This means the city must collect 1.53 trillion VND (65.8 million USD) every day. This is a difficult task.”

Therefore, relevant departments and agencies should focus on key solutions to achieve the targets, he said.

He said the finance department should strengthen measures to ensure full and timely collection in accordance with the law, enhance collection of land use rights when selling State-owned properties, strictly control spending, and speed up equitisation of Stated-owned companies.

Together with tax, customs and treasury agencies it should also focus on administrative reform and improving human resources to increase transparency to foster businesses, he suggested.

He called on it to ensure businesses scrupulously use e-invoices to prevent tax evasion and create a culture of paying taxes among household businesses.-VNA